2 Aug
2009
2 Aug
'09
2:08 a.m.
On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 05:54:33PM +0200, Jean-Baptiste Mestelan wrote:
2009/7/30 Ken Restivo <ken(a)restivo.org>
Linux audio stuff moves fast, and works better
with rolling releases,
This was also the point made in a recent thread ('Audio distribution
proposal') ; I bought the idea enough to give ArchLinux +
archaudio.repo a try. And this worked pleasantly well : in a few
hours' time, I could set up a fast and lean system, with good
performance for the main audio apps.
Still, a few updates later, I got to think again about this 'rollling'
model : does the constant upgrading not mean that you are constantly
introducing instability into your system ?
For instance : last month, an update broke 'bash-completion' ; this
week, I found out that 'patchage' was no longer working (is it due to
this recent 'boost' lib update ? ) ... These are small things, but
which prove distracting when you just would have liked to sit down and
make some music ...
On the other hand, rolling updates imply that changes happen
gradually, which allows you to determine what particular package
update caused the problem, and fix accordingly. Well, if you have a
good idea of package dependencies, and if you indeed upgrade
gradually.
So, this brings an other question : what is a good frequency for
updates ? I remember that on Gentoo, it was better to sync the system
frequently, as a two-month-late update could result in hard-to-solve
conflicts. This seems less of a problem in Arch Linux ? (no flamebait
intended)
I am mostly thinking aloud here, but would welcome your experience on
the matter, as I am having a hard time figuring out what a good
process would consist in ; probably, it would involve a rolling system
+ carefully controlled updates, and the ability to rollback updates ?
About this last bit, the Remasterys backup utility included in AVLinux
is a wonderful addition. It only works for Debian/Ubuntu systems though, ... and I do not know how easily every package
manager
provides the ability to downgrade ...
Here are a few relevant links concerning Arch :
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=71987
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Downgrade_packages
Well the assumption is that the distro maintainer won't introduce instability :-)
Which, in the case of audio-specific distros, would-- I hope-- be a safe assumption.
Audio distro maintainers aren't likely to treat their "stable" repo like a
developer playground. From what I've seen, they seem to do a good job keeping up with
the latest advances in Linux Audio.
As an astute poster noted a short while ago, one can also pick a different repository
while staying within a particular distro, and get a totally different release model.
For example, for *two years* I ran Debian Sid on my laptop. But it was a snapshot from May
2007 (with I think one update sometime afterwards). So it was quite stable, even though
Sid is always under heavy construction. I solved the instability problem by never typing
"apt-get upgrade" :-) I did have to type "apt-get update" several
times in order to add software, after getting 404's on the version in the Packages.gz
list. But when I started seeing enormous lists of fundamental things that needed updating
(i.e. gcc, glibc, X... the kind of stuff that happened after the Lenny release), I simply
stopped installing new software on it. It sat that way getting heavy use for a long time.
Finally I updated it, and it's now on Lenny. I have done this exact dance with
desktops for almost 10 years now, though I was more willing to apt-get update/upgrade
them.
And of course nowadays there are many other options, like Sidux, all the audio distros,
and many special-purpose distros, many of which are Debian-based anyway.
-ken